SHOW NOTES

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Elizabeth: You are listening to Smart Talks with the Elizabeth Smart Foundation.

[00:00:10] I'm your host, Elizabeth Smart. Smart Talks provides survivors and supporters with tools for healing, a sense of community, and empowerment so we can all heal and move forward together.

[00:00:22] Hello, and welcome back to our final episode of Season Three, Smart Talks by the Elizabeth Smart Foundation. I am your host, Elizabeth Smart. And as I think back on this season, I, I think I feel the same way after every season actually. I am just always so amazed, when I think of the different things, the different topics, the different subjects, what I've personally learned.

[00:00:47] Honestly, I don't know that there isn't an episode that I don't walk away somehow feeling personally touched or feeling some sense of comradery or some sense of compassion or hope for the world. I always leave each episode just feeling a little bit emotional, and this season has been no different.

[00:01:08] As I think back to, our first few episodes where I think of Kara Chamberlain and her story, she is just such an incredibly strong woman. Quite literally in both senses of the word, to have survived what she survived, her kidnapping and abduction, her escape, being able to lead the police right to the door that she was kidnapped from.

[00:01:31] Eventually, finding out that this man had been responsible for the deaths of at least two other victims. So knowing that two cold cases were closed and then going on to become a police officer herself and now, she finds her healing and her strength quite literally through strength, through strength training, and being active and being the best mom that she can now be for her family. She's just amazing.

[00:01:58] I think of all of these different people that we've had on here and how important each and everyone has been to me this season, Judge Cable and Clay Olsen and the work he's doing trying to help, give parents tools.

[00:02:12] I know I'm always asked, "Oh, you're a parent, Elizabeth, how do you protect your kids?" Or "how do you let them go out into the world?" And I'm like, I'm pretty new at this too. My oldest is seven, so I've only been a parent for seven years and I feel like I'm making it up. Figuring it out as I go along.

[00:02:32] Like I'm not an expert parent. I'm trying to figure this out the best I can, and I know, like personally, I deal with wanting to constantly helicopter over them. Are they safe? Are they okay? Who's interacting with them? And just feeling so appreciative towards Clay with his Raise, this new app that he's created to help parents navigate this, honestly, quite terrifying world, that we're sending our kids out into. He was great.

[00:03:00] And then of course there was Dr. Bailey, who, my goodness, I feel like I could move, I could probably move in with her and live my life happily just basking in her presence and her knowledge, because everything that she says, we discussed a lot about fight, flight, freeze, and appease, and how people often mix, confuse appeasement with Stockholm Syndrome, when in fact they are so different, they could not be any more different.

[00:03:27] And I just felt an instant kinship with her because she, because I've been accused of having Stockholm Syndrome. And, for those of you who have never heard of that, count yourselves lucky because Stockholm Syndrome is basically where a victim or a captive supposedly falls in love with their captors.

[00:03:45] And whenever anyone says didn't you have Stockholm Syndrome? I know this is such a shallow thing to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I wanna respond to them and say, have you seen what my captor looked like? What both of my captors looked like? One looked like, a witch, a swamp pack. I don't even know how to describe her. She'd be a good Halloween fixture. Terrifying. And the other one looks like Rasputin. Definitely did not ever fall in love with them. And so having her being able to clinically explain what happens to so many survivors, things that I have always felt, but haven't always had the words to explain, has been so meaningful and powerful to me. And she's just such an incredible person. Appeasement is not falling in love with your captor at all, appeasement is doing whatever you have to to survive, which is exactly what I did. It is exactly what Kara Robinson did. It is exactly what Jaycee Dugard has done. It's what so many survivors do, and yet there really has never been a word to explain it.

[00:04:58] It really is a survival instinct and as I'm just talking about these different topics, go back and look up these episodes because they are, these topics are covered in so much more detail than I'm just talking about right now. I'm just talking about ones that, they all made such a difference to me. But ones that, stand out, that doesn't even sound right cause I feel like they all stood out in their own ways. But this season I just feel like I have learned so much and it's so many of these people. They never know when they're talking to me, but just how much they speak to me personally and how much difference they just make to me personally and how grateful I am to them. It's just such an honor.

[00:05:44] I hope that as all of you go forward in your own lives, should you come across other survivors or, and it could be survivors of anything, but I hope you realize what a honor it is to have someone open themselves up and be vulnerable for you.

[00:06:02] I hope you don't take that lightly and I hope that other people's experiences are never belittled. I think it's easy, we get into this rut of comparing ourselves to whoever's speaking or sharing their story at the moment, I think it's easy to think, oh well, oh, that story. Wow. How could I ever even compare to them? What I went through is nothing. And that's just not fair. At the end of the day, pain is pain.

[00:06:32] And actually, I believe it was back in season two, we had a therapist come on and explain what trauma is and the definition that sticks out in my mind. I guess it's really more of a visual that sticks out in my mind, but we go through life and we have this box or this window, and we kind of live our life within this window. Trauma is anything that goes beyond the window. So if you saw a box moving along a line and the line started getting wavy, and all of a sudden the waves, the peaks, and the valleys dipped above and below that box, those above areas and below areas are what's considered trauma.

[00:07:14] And I was talking with my friend actually just yesterday and we were sitting at the park with our kids and they were running around being crazy and we're just asking how each other's feeling and how each other's doing. And we're both saying, oh, you know, like things are good. Like I don't have anything really to complain about, but I am, I'm so tired right now. And I just feel like there's a lot going on. And we were kind of not, not comparing, but just walking through the different things each of us were, were dealing with.

[00:07:42] And we both stepped back at the end and we're like, you know, none of any one of these things is not a bad things, these are all good things, but it just, it feels like a lot. And then, and she was bringing up, she's like, I know it feels like a lot, but I just, I don't feel like I could ever complain about any of this because other people go through so much worse.

[00:08:01] She's like, you go through so much worse. And I was sitting there and I was like, yeah, but I think our windows shrink and grow as we go through life. And sometimes I think that it's easier, well, I don't even know if this is quite accurate, bear with me and I hope that you understand the spirit of what I'm trying to say, but it's almost easier to manage the big things that come. They shake us to our core. They're shocking, but at the time, you can recognize the shock. You can recognize how big they are, and so you can, you allow yourself more space for that emotional burden. You allow yourself more space to maybe take care of yourself.

[00:08:47] You allow yourself more, just more grace and more time to get through it. Whereas I think that for me and I'm thinking probably many other people, it's easy to become overwhelmed and not exactly know how to respond to all of the little things and then feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed by the little things.

[00:09:11] And I think it's because we break it down and we compare them to the really big things in our life or the big stories that we hear on the news or or other people who have gone through these huge traumatic things and you just think, I have nothing to complain about. What am I complaining for? But maybe it's just like thing after thing, after thing after thing. And so you never even have a chance to process it at all. And now I've gotten completely off topic. I can't even remember where I started. But I think my point is, we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to each other. It's just not fair. It's not fair to the other person, and it's not fair to yourself.

[00:09:49] I think you can only meet yourself where you're at and try to take care of yourself where you're at, and respect that in other people. And so when, as people do share their stories, that's it. I was talking about sharing stories, and having space and holding respect for other people as they share their stories, but also having space and respecting yourself or what you have been through, because whether you like it or not, life has trauma.

[00:10:17] It's just a part of life. respecting another person's story while respecting your own and allowing space for yourself and making sure that you are taking the time to process what's going on in your life, even if it's, even if it's just the small things.

[00:10:37] I, a few years ago, my grandma died and I adored her. She was hilarious. She was completely inappropriate. Maybe that's why I loved her so much, I don't know. But at her funeral, like, I cried like a waterfall was coming out of me. Like my husband kept leaning over and asking me, are you okay? Are you sure you're okay? Do you need to step out for a minute?

[00:11:01] And I was like, I'm fine. I'm fine. I promise I'm fine. Just leave me. I'm fine. But I remember before the actual formal part of the funeral started, my cousins and I, we all had the opportunity to go up and just share a memory of my grandma. And I remember as everyone got up and shared their stories, I was laughing harder than I was crying.

[00:11:26] And as I sat there listening to everyone's story about my grandma and just the fun times and happy memories that we have of her, I started thinking, wow, she really led just a remarkable life. And she, but she also led a fun life. She did amazing things, but she took time along the way to enjoy life, to laugh at herself, to make time for having fun.

[00:11:50] And I think that's important that we continue to do. I know that it stood out to me personally. I remember just thinking, wow, if I died tomorrow, I know it's morbid thought, but there you go. That's what crossed my mind. I thought, would people be able to get up and laugh the same way I laughed at my grandma's funeral?

[00:12:11] I don't know. I feel like it would be a pretty serious funeral, and I think probably the greatest compliment I could give my grandma about her funeral was that I did laugh as much as I cried at it. And I think life is meant to be, I think it is meant to be happy. And I think it, you are meant to, make time to take care of yourself and enjoy yourself.

[00:12:37] And I think if this podcast does anything, yes, I want it to educate. I want survivors to know that they're not alone. I want, I don't want victims to feel ashamed or guilty for what's happened to them, but I also want them to walk away feeling a sense of hope, feeling like there are people in this world who are doing things to try to prevent these tragedies from happening again. And I also want people to walk away feeling inspired to, to know that it's okay to feel what you're feeling and it's okay to take time for yourself, and it's okay for you to say no and to be able to turn down things and not to feel guilty for enjoying your life or taking time off just to have fun to build those happy memories.

[00:13:30] I think that is so important because the bad times are gonna come regardless. So making time to enjoy your life, to take care of yourself, to build happy memories, I do believe is so important. And to some degree, I feel like every episode that we've had there has been an echo of that. We've talked a lot about how people have turned their pain into purpose, but how they continually are working towards a better future.

[00:13:59] And so I hope that you will all walk away feeling the same way and that you, and if today is the only episode you ever listen to or ever again, you walk away feeling like it's okay to be happy and it's okay to be where I'm at right now. And it's important and needful to take time to enjoy your life because you never know when it's gonna change.

[00:14:25] You never know what tomorrow's gonna bring, and you should certainly have happy memories in your life. So without being said, thank you for listening to my endless rambling. And hopefully we will catch you next season on Smart Talks. Thank you and God bless every one of you. Goodbye.